Sure, you probably won’t sell a bundle of ebooks, except perhaps with Apple and B&N, but the exposure from each retailer will boost your title’s exposure and SEO. (Search Engine Optimisation)

2. Search engine exposure

While on SEO, Smashwords have a link on your publisher’s dashboard for every ebook, with a list of SEO entries for each title and author gained simply by listing with Smashwords. Again, more exposure.

3. Access to your ebooks to distribute

Have you ever wanted to send a copy of your ebook to a book blogger or reviewer?

It’s a pain when they ask for a special format such as mobi, epub or pdf. If you are published on Smashwords, this is very easy, as you can download copies of your own book in any one of eight different file formats at any time.

All you need to do is login to your Smashwords account, go to your Dashboard, and click on the book title.

This will take you to your Smashwords Store page. The download links are in a box on the right-hand side. If I didn’t sell one single ebook on Smashwords, this feature alone would make publishing there well worthwhile.

4. Coupons

Another feature I like is Coupons. If you are doing an email promotion, for instance, you can give potential buyers a discount code to use to get your ebook at a cheaper price. You can also use coupons on social media to give your ebook a kick along.

5. Affiliates

The last hidden feature on your Smashwords Dashboard is ‘Affiliate Settings’. I can’t say that I have used this, but why not encourage affiliate marketers to sell your ebook? With the number of affiliate marketers around, it might be worth a try.

So, there you have it. Even if you don’t sell a single copy via Smashwords, there are some very useful reasons to make sure that your ebook is published there.

Derek Haines

4 thoughts on “5 Reasons To Self-Publish On Smashwords – Other Than To Sell eBooks”

Yes it may increase your Search Engine Optimisation. But if it is being sent to a load of small time publishers, what’s the point Derek? How many sales will you get from the small fry?

Beside Amazon, I also adverise on Twitter, AuthorsDen, Linkedin, Google+, Pinterest, Facebook, Stumbleupon and my blog, each with a direct link to my Amazon Author’s Page and my books. So far it is Amazon.com that generates 99% of my sales. So you could say that my version of an SEO is working just fine. ;)